Gemini, the New York-based cryptocurrency exchange, has raised $400 million (£298m) through growth equity financing led by Morgan Creek Digital.
This is the first time the company has received external financing from other companies, with private equity firm 10T, blockchain investor ParaFi, and even the Commonwealth Bank of Australia getting involved.
Gemini, which was launched by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in 2015, now sits at a $7.1 billion (£5.28bn) valuation.
Announcing the newfound funding, Gemini stated: “With this round of financing, Gemini will continue to bring simple, innovative, and secure products to market, and advance its geographic expansion.”
In light of the ongoing technological shift towards the metaverse, the Winklevoss twins appear to be gearing up their cryptocurrency platform in a similar fashion to Zuckerberg’s Meta, formerly known as Facebook.
The twins launched Nifty Gateway, Gemini’s NFT platform, way ahead of the curve back in 2018. Recently, they have acquired shares in a host of burgeoning NFT companies, such as Alethea AI and Recur.
Back in April, Gemini even purchased virtual land in the upcoming Ethereum-based game The Sandbox, driving home the extent of the twins’ commitment to connecting with the metaverse.
However, unlike Meta, Gemini supports the decentralisation of finance and the metaverse to allow for greater personal choice and financial freedom.
“There’s these two parallel paths, in terms of technology right now,” Cameron Winklevoss told Forbes in an interview discussing the new funding.
“There’s a centralised path, like Facebook or Fortnite, that is one step away from being a metaverse, and that’s totally fine. But there is another path, which is the decentralised metaverse and that’s the metaverse where we believe there’s greater choice, independence and opportunity, and there is technology that protects the rights and dignity of individuals.”
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